Three first cousins of Marvin X join ancestors within three weeks, two in three days

Cover photo Alicia Mayo

Cover and book design Adam Turner

WTF, I am in total shock and disbelief that three of my first cousins have joined the ancestors within the last three weeks, also my "adopted" aunt, Dr. Julia Hare. My cousins, Stan, Faye and Sandra Murrill, were children of my mother's brother, Stanley, who raised them as a single father after divorcing his wife due to alcoholism. The remaining siblings are Patsy, Connie and Cathy, all of whom except Connie resided in Sacramento. Their father was my mother's baby brother and my surrogate father after my parents separated. My maternal family suffered high blood pressure and the resultant strokes. Faye and Sandra were on dialysis and transitioned yesterday and today. When my sister Judy called to inform me Faye passed, I thought she was joking since we have yet buried cousin Stan, my most radical cousin who combined revolution and the hustling life. Faye and Sandra lived quiet lives, even more reclusive than I am, though this is a family trait, introverts. Faye's son, Byron, works hard as the manager of a DMV in Oakland. All of my cousins support the family radical, especially when I make appearances in Sacramento. Stan and I last kicked it together when I was a featured author at the Sacramento Black Book Fair. Stan never hesitated to tell all he knew that I was his cousin and he spread my books throughout the hood. When I stayed with him at his apartment, he rushed me to his neighbor's house, Fillmore Slim, legendary musician and master of the game.

Stan, also known as Butterball in the hood (especially in Sac's Oak Park neighborhood) was the inspiration of his five sisters, which makes me think they enjoyed an unconscious pack to depart together since they most certainly did. If I am correct, Stan, Sandra and Faye were the eldest of the six children. I thank them for the loving times we shared and know, yes, they are in a better place since I have no knowledge of their doing wrong to anyone. Surely we are from Allah and to Him we return. Arrangements are pending. As the eldest of all my cousins, I say please pray for the Murrill/Jackmon family in our hour of grief. Thank you.
--Marvin X
3/21/19

And the beat goes on

Marvin X 75th b-day tour

b. May 29,1944

Saturday, March 23

Benefit for Haiti

Malonga Center, Oakland, 7pm

book signing

Sunday, March 24

Marvin X joins Bay Area poets in honor of the

50th Anniversary of the BSU/Third World Strike at SFSU

San Francisco Main Library, Larkin Street

1-4PM

Sunday, March 24, 6-10PM

Marvin X at Oakland's Blue Dream

1300 7th Street, West Oakland

The Art of Storytelling

a reading and trans-generational conversation with Marvin X
conducted by Hip Hop comic Langstyn Williams

"Marvin X is a National Treasure!"--Blue Dream
"Marvin X is Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland!"--Ishmael Reed, Master Writer 

"He's the USA's Rumi, Saadi, Hafiz!"--Bob Holman

"When you listen to Tupac Shakur, E-40, Too Short, Master P or any other rappers out of the Bay Area of Cali, think of Marvin X. He laid the foundation and gave us the language to express black male urban experiences in a lyrical way."
--James G. Spady,
Phiadelphia New Observer Newspaper

"Marvin X was my teacher. Many of our comrades came through his Black Arts Movement theatre, e.g., Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, George Murray, Samuel Napier, Emory Douglas, et al."--Dr. Huey P. Newton, co-founder, Black Panther Party

Saturday, April 6, 3-6PM
Memorial for Dr. Julia Hare

Minister-poet Marvin X officiates
Geoffery's Inner Circle
14th and Franklin Streets,
downtown Oakland CA

Tuesday, April 9, 4PM
Davey D's Hip Hop Class
San Francisco State University

photo Davey D

Marvin X with students in Davey D's Hip Hop class, San Francisco State University, 12/4/18

Marvin X received his B.A. and M.A. in English/Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, 1974-75. He was a TA in the English/Creative Writing Department, 1964-66, also a member of the Negro Students Association that morphed into the BSU, 1964-66. 

He graduated from Oakland City College, aka, Merritt, 1962-1964. His fellow students were Black Panther Party co-founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. The entire Bay Area was inspired by the black radical consciousness of the Afro-American Association under the leadership of Attorney Donald Warden, aka Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour. May he be forever praised! Without the AAA there would be no Black Panther Party, Black Arts Movement or Black Studies in the Bay Area. I wish sombody would hep me in the spirit of JB.

The SFSU Drama Department produced his first play, the Black Arts Movement classic Flowers for the Trashman, 1965. In 1966, he dropped out of SFSU to found his own Black Arts West Theatre in the Fillmore, later worked at the New Lafayette Theatre in Harlem, New York, while underground as a resister to the USA war in Vietnam. 

May 29, 2019

Honorary Philly Poet Marvin X 

celebrates his 75th b-day in Philly

at the University of Penn

hosts: Maurice Henderson, Gregory Walker, Tony Montiero, Pam Africa, Sonia Sanchez, Elliott Bey, Sun Ra Arkestra, Muhammad Ahmad, Nisa Ra, et al.

June 2019
Marvin X reads and signs Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter
Seattle, Wa
host: Hakeem Trotter
TBA

October, 2019
Marvin X production
How We Got Ovah
celebration of the 400th anniversary of  our presence
in the wilderness of North America, English colonies
1619-2019
a myth-ritual dramatic dance drama/mixed media production
written/directed/produced 
by Marvin X
Six Square Black Cultural District
Executive Producer
Austin, Texas